By John B. AndersonPublished December 25th 2005 in Miami Herald (and other publications)

This holiday season brings ill tidings for an America dominated by two
bickering behemoths. The Republicans are flailing under their bag of
goodies for America, stuffed with a spate of ethics scandals at state,
congressional, and presidential levels, as well as Iraq's daily death
toll. The Democrats are buckling under the weight of their own Santa
satchel, bulging with pundits and consultants who cry for a bold, new
vision, but with little, unified answer from party leaders who already
should have one.

During my two decades as a congressman, I know that this kind of
political posturing and finger pointing in Washington is par for the
course, even at this time of year. But it has gotten worse, with more
serious consequences. Lost in the self-interested politics of this
bitterly divided, two-party duopoly is Americans' perennial wish to
finally be free to vote their conscience, not their calculus.

For too long, Americans have had to choose between "the lesser of two
evils" or risk having their vote for a favorite candidate outside the
duopoly split the majority and benefit their least favorite candidate.
Many simply abstain.

The problem is our winner-take all, plurality-voting system that could
and should be changed by mere statute. This system violates the
fundamental principles of real democracy: that every vote should count
equally and that a true majority should rule. Furthermore, it
increasingly causes demonizing partisanship and power grappling between
the two mega-parties, supplanting public service and principled policy
altogether.

Indeed, the "bane of party spirit," of which George Washington warned in
his farewell address in 1796, has produced the factions and increasingly
bitter recriminations feared by our constitutional framers. Our
polarized, winner-take-all elections in gerrymandered districts have
given us five consecutive national congressional elections where more
than 98 percent of all incumbents have won, most by huge margins. Most
state legislators are even more entrenched, resulting in leaders who
quash all dissent and run roughshod over the minority.

The one-party domination of most congressional districts and of most
legislatures is a product of limiting choices and denying representation
to so many Americans. As it stands now, winner-take-all elections for
legislative seats has majority Republicans entrenched, feeling
invulnerable, while the minority Democrats try to be everything - and
therefore nothing - to everybody to win back seats.

Regardless of which party is temporarily on top, though, too many in the
major parties loathe the idea of voters having more viable choices. With
more voices, they risk losing the chokehold of a two-choice electoral
system that produces stagnation rather than stability, an entrenchment
of corrupting power rather than the energy of new ideas needed to
address war and inequality that cast lengthening shadows here and
abroad.

There is little democracy, much less progress, when voters' choices are
restricted and their voices, therefore, muted. This is exactly why I
left my party to run as an independent for president of the United
States in 1980. The major parties can only be accountable if able to
defeat challenges by independents and third parties.

Americans want, and deserve, a bold, pragmatic vision for free and fair
elections here at home, bridging the so-called red-state, blue-state
divide, and ensuring accountability, integrity and diversity of views -
even within a given party. We must put America's democracy back in the
hands of the voters, where it belongs.

Instead of electing executive leaders by plurality systems that put
independents in the "spoiler" role, we should use instant runoff voting,
a majority system that has passed with flying colors in major elections
abroad and in American cities. Instead of electing legislators through
winner-take-all, one-seat districts, we should use proportional systems
that widen voter choices and representation in multi-seat districts -
just as my home state of Illinois so effectively elected state
legislators for more than a century.

If our elected officials are too hooked on the politics of power to
trust the will of the American people, we should likewise choose not to
put our trust in them. Such common-sense reforms cannot wait when the
purpose of our country and so many lives literally hang in the balance.
For each American, therefore, let us recall the words of Lincoln in this
season and give our country the gift that truly keeps giving: a real
democracy - of the people, for the people, and, ultimately, by the
people.

ABOUT THE WRITERJohn B. Anderson served Illinois in the U.S. House of Representatives
from 1961 to 1981. He ran for president as an independent in 1980 and
today is chairman of FairVote - The Center for Voting and Democracy.